SUNDAYS ON BROADWAY Spring 2018 Season Begins in March

Cathy Weis Projects announces the spring 2018 season of Sundays on Broadway, an ongoing series of performances, film screenings, and discussions on Sunday evenings at WeisAcres. The spring season is jointly curated by dance artists Ishmael Houston-Jones, Jon Kinzel, Jennifer Lafferty, and Cathy Weis. All events begin at 6pm. $10 suggested donation at door. WeisAcres is located at 537 Broadway, #3 (between Prince and Spring Streets), in Manhattan.

Drawing inspiration from the history of the 537 Broadway building and the impact of artists in the SoHo community, choreographer and video artist Cathy Weis launched Sundays on Broadway in May 2014. This one-of-a-kind series serves as a gathering place for artists to perform and discuss their work and processes with audiences in the intimate setting of Weis' SoHo loft. Since its inception, the series has presented the work of dozens of choreographers, filmmakers, performers, and visual artists.

The spring 2018 season will feature new and in-progress works by more than twenty artists, including Simone Forti and Cathy Weis (March 18); Lauren Bakst, Ursula Eagly, and Maddie Schimmel (March 25); David Cale, Neil Goldberg, and Julie Spodek (April 8); Justin Cabrillos, Samuel Hanson, and Adrienne Truscott (April 15); Laurie Berg/Bessie McDonough-Thayer, Jessica Pretty, and Emily Wexler (April 22); Marc Crousillat, Johnatan Rezende, and Stuart Shugg (May 6); Jennifer Miller, Saori Tsukada/Nikki Appino, and Cathy Weis (May 13); and Charles Atlas (May 20).

Spring 2018 Schedule

Sunday, March 18

An evening with Simone Forti and Cathy Weis

An evening of experiments by Simone Forti and Cathy Weis on their Maiden Voyage as collaborators in a space that is so familiar to them both. Forti lived and worked at 537 Broadway for decades. Weis now resides and creates there. They will show early video work and share some of the discoveries made during one week of moving together in the studio.

Sunday, March 25

Curated by Jennifer Lafferty

Shared evening: Lauren Bakst, Ursula Eagly, and Maddie Schimmel with Sarah Allwine

Lauren Bakst will share an excerpt from Private Collection, a new work-in-progress, with effie bowen and Chanterelle Menashe Ribes. Bakst writes: "Last week, I was in disguise and I overheard some people talking about a performance of a Private Collection they had just seen. The first person said it was like overhearing one side of an incredibly personal phone conversation. The second person said it had the texture of watching a sex tape of someone you had just started dating. The third person didn't know what to say. Later, alone, she thought to herself: Does everyone feel this way sometimes?"

Ursula Eagly will present a draft of a new work that offers a poetic structure for theatrical magic and relational pedestrianism. Eagly is joined by her longtime collaborators, Japanese composer Kohji Setoh and the New York City-based lighting designer Madeline Best.

Describing their work, choreographer Maddie Schimmel and visual artist Sarah Allwine write, "This is not the body: it is the dismantled frame deflated and deconstructed, a blueprint of what was. Identify the anatomy, the facets, and mark all barriers clearly. Name the planes and find the parallel lines that run along the silhouette. Now run your fingers along the seams, fold and remember, imagine the figure with each connection. Repeat and fold and hide the seams, replicate the figure, construct the object, objectify the form, this is not the body."

Sunday, April 8

Curated by Jon Kinzel

Shared evening: David Cale, Neil Goldberg, and Julie Spodek

Kieren McGrath is David Cale's portrait of a charismatic Irish horse-drawn carriage driver in Central Park whose life takes an unexpected turn when he's offered a provocative job he can't refuse.

Neil Goldberg will present Three or Four Steps Through a Shadow (2003-05), a silent video that examines the shadows that pass across pedestrians' faces as they walk beneath a mulberry tree near his apartment.

Julie Spodek will share excerpts from The Abjection Series/work stemming from her ongoing studio practice/a meditation/a body in an After Field/a physical practice that emerges from various states and conditions of abjection. The term abjection literally means the state of being cast off. While in common usage it has connotations of degradation, baseness and meanness of spirit, the term has been explored in poststructuralism as that which inherently disturbs conventional identity and cultural concepts.

Sunday, April 15

Curated by Ishmael Houston-Jones

Shared evening: Justin Cabrillos, Samuel Hanson, and Adrienne Truscott

Justin Cabrillos, joined by performer Matt Shalzi, will share an excerpt from a larger project with the Working Title as of it.

Choreographer Samuel Hanson and writer/musician Alexander Ortega present their second collaboration, a work inspired by their relationship as a dance artist and writer/editor at a dance publication.

Adrienne Truscott will continue to embrace, play with, undermine, and disregard the forms she loves. "She will see how this works on Broadway-historically a place for mediocrity to be costumed and soundtracked-and on Sunday-historically understood as a day of rest."

Sunday, April 22

Curated by Ishmael Houston-Jones

Shared evening: Laurie Berg with Bessie McDonough-Thayer, Jessica Pretty, and Emily Wexler

Dancers Laurie Berg and Bessie McDonough-Thayer will show material from their modular, inflatable duet.

Jessica Pretty will show an excerpt from a work-in-progress that interrogates pleasure as a way of living past survival, of seeking other worlds and times and spaces for art. In this, Pretty questions "how we are constantly evaluating the stakes involved in our work-making process, the labor of being unapologetic, the labor of representation, the labor of (in)visibility, the labor of the solo black body, and how to queer our own possibilities and modes of migration."

Clean Cut is a solo by Emily Wexler that considers breakage. The work includes a large paper floor and wall, scissors, a handmade paper dress, and much dancing. There will be silence and then music. Wexler will create the paper room, then deconstruct and remove it from the space.

Sunday, May 6

Curated by Jon Kinzel

Shared evening: Johnatan Rezende and Stuart Shugg

Marc Crousillat will perform a solo dance. The choreography comes from a process of layering and re-narrativizing movements, techniques, and ideologies that have traveled through his body for the past ten years. Instead of seeking to inhabit uncharted territory, his movements are actively in dialogue with ones he has already encountered.

The aim of dancer Johnatan Rezende is to "collapse the space between strangers and call attention to the excesses of capitalism." Rezende creates outdoor solo performances that take place in crowded shopping areas and the construction sites of deluxe apartment buildings in Brazil. He will use these urban interventions to question and adapt to the studio environment at WeisAcres.

Stuart Shugg continues investigating ways to re-route flow in his work, through the deep study of phrasing and rhythmic variation possible within movement. By shifting attention, altering muscular tensions, and playing with different perceptions of weight, he has created a solo that explores how this flow can warp.

Sunday, May 13

Curated by Cathy Weis

Shared evening: Jennifer Miller, Saori Tsukada with Nikki Appino, and Cathy Weis

Jennifer Miller, founder and director of the legendary Circus Amok, steps out of the ring and onto the dance floor. She will present a work-in-progress showing of a solo dance piece, her first in years, titled ACK ACK ACK!!! Glorious light moves through the house. Harvey is my neighbor. Pauline is my practice. A Man Needs a Maid: A Dance for D.

Theater artists Saori Tsukada and Nikki Appino will show an excerpt from a new work in development entitled ARCHIVIST. Guided by an elderly archivist, the audience discovers an underground library where files, books, artifacts, and junk are meticulously organized. A death in the family; the breakup of a trusted relationship; a burnt-down apartment; these intertwined episodes and significant life events are organized and categorized by this library's strange, rigorous system. This will be the first reading of the work (possibly without words).

Sundays on Broadway is not only for the new and experimental, but also for the tried and true. Alongside the two newer works on the program, Cathy Weis will resurrect an earlier work, bringing new life to her signature live video setup.

Sunday, May 20

Curated by Cathy Weis

An evening with Charles Atlas

Renowned filmmaker Charles Atlas will present selections from new and recent work.

Artist lineup subject to change. For more information about Sundays on Broadway, visit www.cathyweis.org.